Slideshow: Ford Steps Up Sustainable Materials

Ford Motor Co. is stepping up its use of recycled, biobased, and recyclable materials in components throughout the car and increasingly across models. This is part of its ongoing efforts to cut vehicle carbon dioxide emissions and waste that goes to landfills.

The automaker has been famously ahead of the curve in using renewable and sustainable materials in its automobiles. We've told you about its work to turn recycled bottles into car seats and its collaboration with Weyerhaeuser on a cellulose-based composite for car interiors. Ford uses sustainable materials in many of its car components: seat cushions, carpeting, head rests, door bolsters, instrument panels, heater and air-conditioner housing, roof lining, fan shrouds, replacement bumpers, seals and gaskets, wheel arch liners, underbody shields, cylinder head covers, and sound-dampening material.

"Our sustainable materials strategy is to develop environmentally friendly alternatives while we're not in a rush, and far enough ahead of time to introduce them in an orderly way," Carrie Majeske, Ford's product sustainability manager, told us.

Click the image below to start a slideshow on Ford's efforts.

From 2007 to 2011, Ford cut landfill waste 40 percent to 22.7 pounds per vehicle, and it hopes to lower this figure another 40 percent by 2016. The Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Dearborn, Mich., recently became the first in North America to have zero waste going to landfills.(Source: Ford)

Sustainable materials make good business sense by hedging against future price volatility in materials that may become scarce commodities. "There's also evidence that consumers increasingly want green products," she said. "Although it's not part of the purchase decision when buying a car, they like it after the fact when they know they have it."

Ford has set specific content standards. Since the 2009 model year, seat fabrics used in any new vehicle must contain at least 25 percent recycled material. Electric and hybrid vehicles are meeting even higher standards -- several already are using fabrics made from 100 percent recycled materials.

For a lot of sustainable and renewable materials, we do the R&D on them internally and then seek suppliers for production. We also get ideas for new materials from suppliers. The wood fiber material we developed with Weyerhaeuser is about to go into production, and other new materials are already in the pipeline. We also want to take some existing renewable materials to the next level and make them recyclable.

Right now, Ford uses many recyled materials but few biobased ones. The automotive environment presents some major challenges for bioplastics. For example, materials must withstand temperature extremes and UV cycling and last 10-20 years, Majeske said. They must also be odorless, have no or few volatile organic compound emissions, and meet cost targets similar to those for virgin, petro-based plastics.

Thanks, Nadine, glad this was useful. I was surprised to find out how many different areas the company has been pursuing alternative sustainable and renewable materials in, and for how long. I'm glad they're not being so quiet about it now.

Ann, your story on Ford's sustainability issue reminded be of an old (hopefully true) Ford story. Always looking to cut costs, Henry Ford worked with materials mainly composed of soybean byproducts for his car interiors. This seemed like a great idea until his rural customers complained the family goats were getting into the cars and eating the knobs, dials, etc., so he went back to the drawing board.

I don't know about the interiors story, but I also seem to recall that Henry Ford also produced a prototype car body made from a soybean-based plastic. It never saw production, but if I remember correctly, he was trying to increase the market for farm products, to help family farmers survive and prosper. This may also have been shown during WW II, as a possible way to provide substitutes for metals needed for the war effort. Here's a link:

Early in the 20th century, there was a LOT of material development. Even more that we see today. Soybeans, hemp, flax and many more natural resources were made into usable materials for mass production. Even waste product from milk and dairy production can be made into fabric. It's really soft!

But, it was all slower and more expensive than the newest thing-plastics. Everything else was shelved. Luckily, many of these developments are being rediscovered.

Ford wasn't interested in being sustainable by today's definition. He was interested in sustaining his bottom line.

NadineJ and ratkinsonjr, thanks for the info. I didn't know about milk-based fabrics--seems counterintuitive. But then so does a lot of this. Castor bean oil is another feedstock that's been looked into for some time. Arkema was one of the earliest to develop a commercial bioplastic using castor bean oil: its Rilsan product went on the market in 1947: http://www.arkema.com/en/products/product-finder/range-viewer/Rilsan-Arkema/

notarboca, if Henry Ford was really experimenting with soybean-based plastics back then, they must have been among the first ones. As we've written about many times, bioplastics have come a long, long way from unstable, weak plastics, and from smelly stuff goats would want to eat. DuPont, for example, has been in the forefront of making engineering bioplastics as good as, or better than, the ones they replace--check out their tech specs.

Al, based on what I've seen, heard and read sustainability is now one of Ford's top goals as a company overall. This is evident from the sustainability report (at the link we give in the article), on things their top officials have said, and most important, from their actions. It's been true for several years but I think they're making it more public recently.

Many of the new adhesives we're featuring in this slideshow are for use in automotive and other transportation applications. The rest of these new products are for a wide variety of applications including aviation, aerospace, electrical motors, electronics, industrial, and semiconductors.

A Columbia University team working on molecular-scale nano-robots with moving parts has run into wear-and-tear issues. They've become the first team to observe in detail and quantify this process, and are devising coping strategies by observing how living cells prevent aging.

Many of the new materials on display at MD&M West were developed to be strong, tough replacements for metal parts in different kinds of medical equipment: IV poles, connectors for medical devices, medical device trays, and torque-applying instruments for orthopedic surgery. Others are made for close contact with patients.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.